


Witch

by dgalerab



Series: Witch [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fantasy AU, Hints of Iwaoi and Ushiten, M/M, minor kuroken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 04:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgalerab/pseuds/dgalerab
Summary: Akaashi Keiji, Knight of King Oikawa, is sent into the woods to find a beast that's killing villagers and livestock. He finds a bit more than that.





	Witch

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever stop tormenting myself by trying to write bird things? Sources say no.

Everything starts on the day the fog rolls in, dark and foreboding.

It’s an odd fog, one that lingers all day, steeping the castle and surrounding villages into a dim, lifeless gray. It’s hard to even see within the castle garden, and Keiji can only imagine how hard it must be for the villagers and farmers.

He’s relieved when, after a few days, the knights are assigned to patrol the villages for people who need assistance, escorting farmers to the markets and reporting back on what damages the fog has done. Still, with each day he grows more and more concerned about this unnatural fog.

The crown prince may be a brat, but he’s a brat who takes good care of his people.

On the thirteenth day of fog, he is, unsurprisingly, called in to the throne room.

Oikawa Tooru, crown prince, commander of the knights, and heir to the throne is sitting sprawled on the floor, surrounded by maps, tongue poking out of his mouth as he scribbles on the maps.

He looks up, smiling brightly when Keiji enters, though Keiji knows very well he’s faking it. He’s worried, just like Keiji.

“Akaashi-chan,” he says, happily. He is recklessly informal with all his knights, but Keiji is not in a place to admonish him. “It seems we have a problem.”

Keiji stares ahead, back straight as he pulls himself to attention. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Oikawa sighs. “You’re always so stiff.” He sits up properly. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ve noticed this fog is… getting worrisome.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“However, we have an even bigger problem,” Oikawa continues, pointing at the map, at the villages nearest to the Black Forest. It’s not a creative name, but certainly an accurate one. Keiji has been to those woods, and every time it appears that night has taken up permanent residence in those trees. “The knights reporting back to me from these villages are reporting a frighteningly high amount of livestock deaths, and two missing people.”

Keiji is silent, waiting for him to continue.

Oikawa leans one elbow onto his knee as he sits. “I suspect something from the Black Forest is causing this fog, and I need someone to investigate.”

Keiji’s skin crawls. He’s never liked that forest, even when there wasn’t something killing livestock and possibly people in it.

Oikawa sighs. “I can’t really spare anyone. We have our hands full keeping the people calm and safe. Whoever I send would likely have to go alone or with at most two other knights, if absolutely necessary.”

“I see, Your Highness,” Keiji says. He doesn’t like this at all, but he knows Oikawa is right.

“Father won’t let me send anyone of my guard, in case someone uses this fog to attack me, and after Iwa-chan, you’re my best knight,” Oikawa says, while Iwaizumi scowls at him quietly from where he’s standing, as though to say _Like_ I’d _leave you alone in this fog._ “I’d like you to go, but this once I will allow you to refuse with no repercussions. I know I would have a hard time going into those woods without an army, and I can’t ask you to do it without complaint either.”

Keiji takes a moment to think. “I will do it,” he says. “And I will go alone. Your Highness is right, we cannot spare many men.”

Oikawa smiles. “Thank you, Akaashi,” he says. “But please… be careful.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Akaashi says, bowing.

-X-

It takes several days to get to the edge of the forest. The villagers there are panicked, and Keiji tries not to get in the way of the knights working in the village, transporting food and water. After questioning a few of the farmers, he retreats to the inn.

He stays in the inn, sharpening his sword. Everyone has the same opinion: there is a beast in the woods. Something dreadful that only comes out at night, striking in unexpected places and vanishing once again.

“You’re going out there, huh?” the innkeeper says, as though he’s seen the look on Keiji’s face before. “Into the woods?”

“Yes,” Keiji murmurs. “So it would seem.”

“Sounds awful dangerous.”

Keiji stares at his sword. He sort of wishes he had his proper armor with him, but it would be too difficult to move, so all he has is his chainmail and the sword. Hopefully, it will be enough.

“Would you like a drink? On the house.”

Usually, Keiji doesn’t drink on the job, but this once he thinks it might be better to be a little tipsy, so long as he’s sober when he heads out. “Yes, please,” he says.

-X-

No one accompanies him to the edge of the forest, and he can’t blame them. In their place, he would probably think of himself as a dead man.

He takes a deep breath and takes the first step into the woods. The path is narrow and winding, growing darker with every step he takes. His sword, steady at his back, is the only thing that convinces him to keep going.

So long as he stays on the path, it shouldn’t be too hard to get back. He’ll spend the night in the forest, then spend another day trekking, and if he sees nothing, he’ll turn back and try to camp out near the livestock to see if he can find something there.

He makes a small fire, covering it so it only gives off enough light for him to work with, not large enough to draw all the animals and monsters that might lurk in this forest. He hauls his sword over his lap, gripping it tightly as he leans back against the tree, and closes his eyes.

-X-

He wakes to movement in the trees, and he quickly tightens his grip on his sword, sitting steady and listening.

The rustling stays soft and subtle, but the longer Keiji listens to it, the more he gets the impression that whatever is moving around may be nimble, but it’s large.

He shifts into a crouch, gripping the sword tightly. Whatever this is, it seems to be moving in on him from the front, which should make it slightly easier for him to fend it off…

With a sudden rush of air and a terrifying caucophony of branches snapping, something leaps up, its massive shadow looming over him for a moment, barely lit by the fire, and then plunges down straight on top of him.

He throws himself down, far enough that the creature can barely scratch him, entangled in the branches above him. He thrusts his sword up, but it clangs and bounces back from something. As it moves, he realizes that what he’d hit was one of five massive, sharp talons, each nearly the length of his forearm.

He finds himself freezing for a moment, a sudden terror gripping him and halting his limbs. The creature twists in the branches. It seems to have wings that double as arms, spreading so far they would blot out the moon and the starts if they were visible through the fog. It has the face of an owl, with a beak curving down, large enough it could crush Keiji’s head.

It lunges at him again with one of its taloned feet, tearing a little bit of his hood as he rolls aside, scrambling back to his feet.

The foot swings about, and Keiji grabs at it as it comes into reach, trying to use it as leverage to slide his sword into the beast’s armpit. It squawks, an odd noise that rumbles through the trees, shaking the leaves, and quickly beats the sword away with one hand, shaking him off his foot.

The very tip of his sword has a few drops of blood, but even with such a reckless attempt, Keiji could only scratch it.

He has no choice but to run and report back to the prince, in order to ask for reinforcements.

He ducks under the beast’s arm, sheathing his sword as he goes so he can put all effort into running. Fortunately, within the trees, the creature turns slowly, flapping and screeching, giving Keiji a headstart.

He slides down the path, running his fastest until he’s certain the creature is far behind and he dares to slow to a jog.

As he runs, the snapping of the branches die down slowly, and after a while he can no longer hear the screeching either.

He slows even further, though he doubts it is a good idea to stop completely. There’s a bit of moonlight streaming down through the fog, enough that he can just barely see his way. He’s still on the path, it seems, though he’d been slightly worried that he might have accidentally slid off of it.

He breathes out a sigh of relief, and just as he does, something moves in front of him.

He ducks back, but he suspects that whatever it is can already see him. He’s at a disadvantage here, nearly blind in the dark, while the animals can likely see quite well.

He tries to back up a little without making noise so he can at least squint and try to measure up what lies before him.

There’s a soft, anguish mooing.

The livestock.

Could it be that the beast he had just seen wasn’t the culprit at all?

He can just make out the outline of the cow. It is white save for a few dark spots which, after a moment, he realizes are blood, seeping out of it and staining the ground. It doesn’t try to move, perhaps because it is already near death.

What stands above it is a frightful creature. He can really only see the glowing eyes and the glinting teeth, stretched into something like a grin, sharp and needle-like. As it moves, he can see more of its outline. It’s dark, more like something had been cut out of the area it now seems to occupy. A massive crown of antlers looms above it.

He reaches back to grab his sword, but before he can pull it out, before he can blink, the thing is leaping at him, faster than anything he’s seen before. He manages to pull up his free arm to defend himself, but he doesn’t have time to do it intelligently.

The teeth sink into his arm, feeling as though they have gone straight down to the bone, and he cries out, quickly unsheathing his sword so he can cut at it before it snaps his arm in two.

It doesn’t make a sound, just drops down, backing up.

He lifts the sword, holding it before him to keep the creature at bay.

He’s shaking.

At first, it seems from fear, but as the monster stares at him with blank, glowing eyes, he realizes that it’s waiting.

The sword slides from his shaking fingers, clattering on the floor. He stumbles back, suddenly unable to feel his legs, then collapses to the side.

The monster creeps over him, its breath cold on his cheek.

He tries to will himself to crawl, but everything is going fuzzy.

A familiar screech sounds in the trees, and then a massive shadow descends upon them both.

That is the last thing Keiji can remember.

-X-

He wakes feeling like death.

His eyes and mouth are both dry and his arm hurts so badly he would scream if he could force it up his throat. He can only open his eyes a crack, but nothing he can make out makes much sense. Something is pressing on the tip of his nose and something a lot heavier is pressing on his chest.

Everything is faintly golden, save for a few black blobs.

He blinks, slowly, several times, and things come a little more into focus.

The thing above him is a pair of eyes, close enough that he can only assume that the thing pressing on his nose is, in fact, someone else’s nose.

He starts away, or at least makes an attempt of it, and the person that had been sitting on his chest darts away, something smashing as it leaps away.

It all happens too quickly for Keiji to follow with his sluggish brain, but as he struggles to something like a sitting position, he can figure it out. The stranger had leaped onto the table at the foot of the bed Keiji is somehow in, knocking over a vase, and then onto the rafters of the house they are somehow in, and is now watching him warily from there.

Keiji tries to sit up properly, but the motion jostles his arm, sending pain shooting up through his shoulder. He hisses, looking down at it. It is bundled in an unreasonable amount of bandages and a sling. “Who…” he rasps. “Who are you?”

The stranger gawks down at him, and Keiji wonders if he knows how to speak. He looks like a wild man, strangely colored hair sticking straight up and wrapped in a large, feathery coat of some sort. In fact, now that Keiji is looking at him in earnest, his pupils are only slits in his golden eyes, and Keiji wonders if he is human at all.

“Why am I here?” Keiji asks.

“You stabbed me!” the stranger cries, pointing at him so wildly that he falls out of the rafters.

“What?” Keiji manages, coughing when his dry throat protests.

The stranger pops back to his feet in a flurry, scrambling to rummage violently through the things on the shelf behind Keiji, before he returns with a flask that he nearly hits Keiji in the nose with.

Keiji stares at him, and the stranger eagerly nudges the flask against his cheek, looking like a dog expecting a treat.

Keiji slowly reaches up and takes the flask. He glances down at it, then back up at the stranger. He pops the cap open with his good hand and sniffs at the liquid inside. It smells like nothing.

He takes a tiny sip. It is unlikely that this stranger would wait for him to wake up only to poison him now. Not to mention, now that the memories of the last night are coming to him, Keiji suspects he was already poisoned when this strange man found him.

It is water, judging by the taste.

He gives the man another suspicious glance, but the man just stares at him, crouched by his bed, earnest eyes staring up at him.

He tips the flask into his mouth, drinking desperately until his throat almost feels better. He hands it back, and the man throws it at the nearest table, seeming startled when it knocks something over.

“What do you mean I stabbed you?”

“AAaaAAAAaAaAAAAAA!” the man screams, bouncing to his feet and waving his arms. “You were supposed to run but then you stabbed me and then you ran right at it!!!”

“What?” Keiji manages. Whatever this man is, he has too much energy.

The man has collapsed in on himself in thought, muttering something like “well I suppose you did run, I should have been earlier or maybe later or…”

Keiji blinks at him, mulling over the strange way he holds himself and the feathery cape and the odd eyes…

“You’re the owl beast!” he cries.

The man gapes at him before waving his arms in a way that screams outrage. “I’m not a beast! I’m a Bokuto!”

“What’s a bokuto?” Keiji asks.

“That is me,” he replies, matter-of-fact.

“Your name?”

Bokuto’s brow furrows, his finger tapping at his bottom lip. “Yes,” he says finally.

Keiji frowns. Is he the last of his kind? Or does he simply not understand the question? He seems unaccustomed to human speech, somehow. Every word from his mouth feels foreign.

“What was it that attacked me?” he asks, finally.

“Me,” Bokuto says, like he thinks Keiji is stupid. “Bokuto.”

“No,” Keiji says, trying to remain patient. He waves his injured arm a little. “The other thing.”

“OH!” Bokuto says, throwing his hands up over his head to mimic antlers.

“Yes,” Keiji says.

Bokuto bounces back and forth from foot to foot before shoving his hands in front of him abruptly and shouting, “STAY!” and rushing out of the room, leaving Keiji alone to wonder what just happened.

The obvious choice, of course, is to do as he asks. He is injured and he has little idea of where he is or what awaits him should he leave, and so far he has no reason to suspect this strange man (or whatever he is) will hurt him. However, he still doesn’t fully understand why Bokuto had attacked him earlier, and there’s no harm in looking around.

He slips out of bed, shuffling to the door. He is far too dizzy to make it much further, but he cracks open the door, poking his head out slowly.

It seems to lead straight to the outside of the house, a small porch, then the forest.

On the porch, there lays the most massive, most terrifying cat he has ever seen, easily four meters long. It stares at him with one impassive eye, tail swishing lazily, then slowly reaches forward a paw the size of Keiji’s head to push the door shut in his face.

Keiji stands, frozen, staring at the door for a long while, then goes back to bed.

Soon, Bokuto returns with a tall man beside him, dancing around him expectantly. This man moves in a manner more befitting a human, though his smile makes Keiji wary.

“Hi there,” he says, with a small wave. “I’m Kuroo.”

Bokuto stops his dancing and stops beside him, staring at Keiji intently.

“Akaashi,” Keiji says carefully. This man hadn’t disclosed his given name, and Keiji doesn’t intend to do so either.

“You’re in the heart of the forest,” Kuroo says. “Bokuto dragged you back here after a nasty encounter with a demon.” Here, Bokuto nods eagerly. “And you’ve been out for a day or so. Don’t worry, Kozume took care of your arm, it’ll hurt for a few more days but it won’t fall off or anything.”

“Kozume?” Keiji murmurs.

Kuroo points at the door with a grin. “My cat. Forgive him for being unsociable, he’s a bit shy. Even less used to being human than this one.” He points at Bokuto. Bokuto blinks at him, as though he’d been staring at Keiji too hard to listen to what was being said.

“I see,” Keiji says weakly. If he were capable of turning into four meter long cat, he would not be shy, even if he was unaccustomed to being human.

“Anyway,” Kuroo says. “Like I said, what you saw out there was a demon. We’re not sure how it got summoned or how to banish it just yet, but we’ll handle it. Just rest up and then Kozume will take you home.”

“Unacceptable,” Keiji says.

“Uh,” Kuroo says, slowly, looking confused. “Why, exactly?”

“I am a knight of King Oikawa,” Keiji says. “I was tasked with investigating this demon, and I will not just _sit here_ while you do my job for me.”

Bokuto gasps, wrapping his arms around Kuroo’s waist. “Can I keep him?”

“No,” Kuroo says.

“Ke… Kozume kept _you_.”

“ _No,_ I kept _him_ ,” Kuroo says. He turns back to Keiji with a chuckle. “Alright. But at least sleep off the worst of it before you jump into the thing of things, _Sir_ Akaashi.”

Keiji huffs, laying back. “Fine.”

“Food!” Bokuto declares, leaping away.

Kuroo blanches and runs after him. “No! Bokuto! No! Do not bring him back a dead rat or something!”

As strange as he is, Keiji has to admit Bokuto is kind of cute for a shapeshifting owl monster. He  tries not to smile at the confused and affronted yelling coming from the door. He closes his eyes. Despite the lingering pain in his arm, he manages to fall asleep quickly.

-X-

Keiji sleeps through the next day, waking only when he hears Bokuto and Kuroo yelling about something. Keiji thinks that Kuroo is coaching Bokuto through making human food, because the next thing he wakes up to is Bokuto gently rapping on his nose with a spoon so he can feed him porridge.

When he finally wakes up properly, he finds someone new by his side, wrapping his arm. “Are you Kozume?” he asks, and the man startles, ducking down so that only his eyes can be seen over the side of the bed.

“Sorry,” Keiji murmurs.

One small hand reaches up to tuck in the last of the bandage, and then Kozume darts away.

Kuroo comes back soon after that. “Feeling better?” he asks.

Keiji nods, sitting up.

“Then eat up and we’ll head out,” Kuroo says, sitting beside him. “You can take your sword, but it’ll be useless against the demon.” He holds up a small, round bottle of something. “We’ll use these. You toss ‘em and they make a huge flash. Should work to beat the demon back.”

“I see,” Keiji murmurs, inspecting the bottle. “Very well.”

-X-

The fog is less daunting without being alone. Kozume, despite being mostly black as night, has somehow gotten his tail to glow, letting Kuroo and Keiji follow after it carefully. Though he seems to be more stable than the two of them, he’s not hurried in his motions, letting them follow him easily.

There’s a loud creaking noise and then one of Bokuto’s talons brushes gently over his head. “What?” Keiji asks, heart skipping a beat as he looks up, trying to figure out what Bokuto needs his attention for.

“I think he’s trying to pet you,” Kuroo says, chortling a little.

“Oh,” Keiji says. He thinks he might be blushing. “He is very friendly.”

“Oh yeah,” Kuroo says. “He is the only one of their kind that Kozume will interact with.” As if on cue, Bokuto swoops down to bop Kozume on the head with one foot, leading Kozume to hiss and swipe at him.

“He doesn’t seem happy about it,” Keiji murmurs.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Kuroo laughs. “He enjoys it whenever I drag him here.”

“You… are human, yes?” Keiji asks. “How did you end up with Kozume?”

“He kidnapped me from a band of thieves that had kidnapped me first,” Kuroo says. “After he’d healed my wounds and fed me, I think I was just too fond of him to leave again. And he needs me to communicate with other humans whenever he buys rarer supplies.”

“I see,” Keiji says. “How do you understand him?”

“Practice,” Kuroo says. “You get used to their… less human behaviors after a while.”

“What are they?”

“Witches, I think.” He makes a face. “Though I’m not sure. They don’t have a _word_ for it, per se.”

Bokuto doubles back to try to pet him again, and Keiji feels the corner of his mouth threatening to pull into a smile.

“He likes you,” Kuroo laughs.

There’s barely a rustle before the demon lunges out of the trees at Kuroo. Though he’s been slow and lazy in his movements until now, Kozume’s paw slices through the air to send it flying to the ground before it can even scratch Kuroo. He shifts between them and the demon, hackles raised.

“Careful not to hit him,” Kuroo says, pulling out his flasks. “But feel free to use him as cover, he’ll hold steady.”

“Right,” Keiji says, pulling out one of his own. He throws it over Kenma’s back, and it detonates into a blinding flash of light.

The demon shakes its head, turning to run. Kuroo looks up to where Bokuto’s form can just barely be seen in the fog. “Follow Bokuto,” he says. “I think he knows where to press it.”

Keiji nods, keeping close to Kozume as they dash through the trees, trying to enclose the demon with flashes to keep it directly under Bokuto as he flies.

Soon, Keiji can make out a cave. Kuroo watches Bokuto and Kozume for a moment, then nods. “Try to press it towards the cave,” he says.

Keiji nods, and with a few more bangs they manage to get it to the mouth of the cave. The demon, sensing that it has found itself cornered, moves quickly towards them, trying to claw its way free.

Predictably, Kozume moves to guard Kuroo, leaving Keiji to bring up his arm, hoping that the bandages will keep him from getting poisoned again. Before he can find out, though, Bokuto plunges out of the sky, lifting him out of harm’s way with one leg and pushing a wing-arm in front of him to protect him.

The demon tears into his wing, and he screeches, but throws it off quickly, slamming it against a wall. Kuroo rushes to catch it before it leaps to its feet and runs, setting off one flash ahead of it. It stumbles into the cave, snarling at him, but before it can attack again, there’s another flash of green light, washing over all of them with a rushing noise that leaves Keiji’s ears ringing.

Putrid smoke streams out of the cave, and Keiji coughs, waving it out of his face.

“Sorry, sorry,” comes an odd voice from the smoke. “We didn’t mean to summon _that_ one.”

“Oh, damn,” Kuroo sighs. “Tendou, what are you doing again?”

“What? It’s not like I get my demon names wrong very often,” says the voice, followed by a tall figure coming out of the smoke. This person has even wilder hair than Kuroo, red and sticking up in tufts. “I’ve been trying to lift this stupid fog.”

“That wasn’t from the demon?” Keiji asks.

Kuroo shrugs.

“No,” Tendou says. “That’s a curse. We were trying to find a demon to ask about it, but got a wild one instead.” He looks Keiji up and down. “You’re knight!”

“Yes,” Keiji says.

“Oh, good!” Tendou cries, patting down his pockets. “Hold on. If I write you a message, will you take it to the king?”

“I… suppose,” Keiji says.

“I could use a book,” Tendou explains.

“Since you’re clearly not great at remembering demon names,” Kuroo mutters.

“I _am_ good, but they’re really cloooose,” Tendou whines, sitting down and scribbling on the paper he’d pulled out. “Anyway, I know how to solve this fog, just get me the book.”

“Alright,” Keiji says. “I’ll take it to him.”

Tendou hands him the paper, then looks back into the cave. “Anyway. See you guys. Ushijima’s getting antsy with so many of you here.”

“Right,” Kuroo says, waving absently. “Don’t summon anything ‘til we get back.”

They start on their way back. Keiji stares at the paper. It seems too simple a solution, somehow. Or, perhaps, he was hoping not to go just yet.

“I’ll escort you back,” Kuroo says.

“Right,” Keiji murmurs.

Bokuto, now in human form, drops from a tree and wraps himself around Keiji’s shoulders from behind in an obviously unfamiliar imitation of a hug. “Yes,” Keiji says. “I wish I could stay longer as well.”

Kuroo watches them with a sidelong look, but he keeps walking without comment.

Bokuto lets go after a moment, blinking at him with wide, teary eyes. Kuroo is right, he’s not hard to read now that Keiji isn’t expecting him to act human.

“I have a duty to the kingdom,” Keiji murmurs.

Touches his nose to Keiji’s, a little too recklessly, and Keiji tries not to pull back from the smarting pain it causes. “I do,” he insists, patting Bokuto’s head. “Perhaps I’ll visit sometime?”

Bokuto sighs in an amusingly somber manner and waddles away. Keiji smiles, though he can’t say he’s happy about this either, and follows him.

“You know,” Kuroo says, after a while, once Bokuto has gotten distracted from his melancholy by what seems to be an attempt to nibble at an unwilling Kozume’s tail in an unfamiliar body. “He could use a human companion too. He builds traps and protective spells, mostly, but he could benefit from some of the materials he could buy at a marketplace. Stuff that doesn’t grow in the area.”

“I am still a knight,” Keiji mutters. “I can’t just leave.”

“Well,” Kuroo says. “What if after delivering your message and leaving the kingdom uncursed, you were… strangely kidnapped?”

-X-

He delivers the message to Oikawa a few days later.

“Tendou?” Oikawa mutters. “Ah. I think I know of his witch.” He makes a comically ugly face. “I had a very unpleasant encounter with him once.”

“You don’t trust him?” Keiji asks.

Oikawa sighs. “Yes, I do. He’ll take care of this.” He eyes Keiji and his bandaged arm. “Should I send someone else to take him the book?”

Keiji shakes his head. “No, Your Highness, I can take the book.” He pauses. “However, I believe I may be mysteriously kidnapped on the way.”

Oikawa stares at him for a moment, draped awkwardly over his chair, then groans. “Could you at least ask your kidnappers nicely to _send my book back_?”

Keiji tries to hide a smile. “I believe your book will also mysteriously find its way back, Your Highness.”

“And please tell them to take care of my favorite knight,” Oikawa says. He thinks about it for a moment. “Besides Iwa-chan of course. You’ll be missed, but I’ve wanted to promote Yahaba for quite a while now anyway.”

Keiji laughs. “Best of luck to him, then,” he says, bowing. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

Oikawa waves his hand dismissively and says nothing more.

-X-

When he arrives back at Bokuto’s cabin, Bokuto attempts to celebrate with a large, dead deer, still bleeding all over the table as he presents it proudly.

“It’s lovely, Bokuto,” Keiji sighs. “But for the record, I like my meat _cooked_.”

“Cooked,” Bokuto repeats, slowly.

“Fire,” Keiji says.

Bokuto thinks about it, and promptly ravages a shelf to find something, and before Keiji can stop him, the deer is very much on fire. Keiji stares at it. “Alright,” he says. “Perhaps we should be slightly more careful about figuring this out.”

Bokuto grins and nuzzles his cheek, blissfully oblivious. Keiji, without meaning to, ends up smiling.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment or come talk to me on [Tumblr](http://dgalerab.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Also check out this amazing [fanart](http://dgalerab.tumblr.com/post/163562455012/dgalerab-illysum-he-can-just-make-out-the)!!


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